Have you ever wondered what the "toughest Duel ever" was?
Have you ever wondered who won it?
I have! That's why I experimented with a formula to determine the Duel that, across four seasons of play, is unequivocally the hardest, nastiest, fiercest battle ever. Theoretically, that should be a Championship match...right? The best Duelers from each season of play?
METHODOLOGY:
So how do we determine which Duel was the toughest? The same 12 characters play each game, so the answer must lie with the Duelers involved. And the best Duelers are those who have done some combination of win Duels and reach professional status. The first thing I did was rank the professional and retired professionals who had won a Duel before, using their Dueler ranking after the May the 4th Duel (that's 56 total Duels - the Twin Suns Slam matches weren't included). That resulted in fifteen Duelers with Rob ranked #1 (meaning every Duel he played in contributes one point to a specific Duel's total), Grant ranked #2 (meaning every Duel he played in contributes two points to a specific Duel's total), and so on, all the way to #15 (Ethan). Next, I ranked the professionals and retired professionals who never won a Duel, starting with #16 Kristin all the way to #30 (Toby).
At this point I had an outlier. D. Coy won a Duel back in the first season of play but never reached professional status. I decided to give him a numerical value of 15, the same as Ethan, the lowest ranked professional to win a Duel. From there we needed to assign a point value to the amateurs. I decided amateurs with an average below six would receive a point value of 35, and everyone else would get a 40. This is somewhat arbitrary, but it is what it is. So, a Duel with four amateurs above a career 6 average would result in 160 points being added to that Duel's total. The Duel with the lowest point total becomes the toughest ever.
TOP FIVE TOUGHEST DUELS EVER:
I'll count down in reverse order to build the suspense!
#5 - Valentines Duel, 2017
133 total points - 11.08 avg Dueler
Winner - Ian and Darth Maul
Last Place - Joel and Obi-Wan Kenobi
Kamino Platform
This match featured only one amateur (Hailey) as Dalton stayed loyal to Ian to the very end, leaving Ryan in third place.
#4 - Birthday Surprise #2, 2017
131 total points - 10.92 avg Dueler
Winner - Kaleb and Boba Fett
Last Place - Rob and Emperor Palpatine
Carbon Freezing Chamber
This is the infamous second Duel of the night for surprised birthday boy Curtis. He had a rough finish in the first game and was hoping to do better in game #2. But Ryan ruthlessly threw him under the bus for an eleventh place finish...on his birthday!!! Kaleb's Greedo slaughtered half the board for the win. Luke C. was the only amateur at the game.
#3 - Duel of the Fates, 2016
130 total points - 10.83 avg Dueler
Winner - Alex R. and Count Dooku
Last Place - JD and Yoda
Carbon Freezing Chamber
The only amateur at this Duel, Blake, nearly won. He placed second and nearly toppled Alex. That's the best finish ever for an amateur Dueler. This was the game where the light side was outnumbered but Grant did that really cool double-Whirlwind that wiped out most of the dark side minor characters.
#2 - 2017 Championship
114 total points - 9.5 avg Dueler
Winner - Austin and Obi-Wan Kenobi
Last Place - Jonathan and Luke Skywalker
Carbon Freezing Chamber
If you read the recap you'll be reminded of how bonkers this match was. Austin didn't originally have a seat at the table but parlayed his opportunity into his first (and only) career victory. He did it in back-breaking fashion, betraying almost everybody on the board at one point or another. There were no amateurs in this game.
And now...the toughest Duel ever...
#1 - 2015 Championship
106 total points - 8.83 avg Dueler
Winner - Nathan and Count Dooku
Last Place - Alex R. and Han Solo
Carbon Freezing Chamber
The 2015 Championship featured a "who's who" of the legends of the game: Alex R., Ian, Stephen, Chris, JD, Rob, Sakina, Daniel, Grant, Ryan, Curtis...and Nathan. Of particular note: this was Nathan's second straight victory, which is a crazy amount of pressure and attention to have to navigate in the ultimate Duel of the year. But his alliance with Curtis and Darth Maul carried the day. It was the toughest Duel ever played!
CONCLUSION:
It's interesting to note that the four toughest Duels were in the Carbon Freezing Chamber. Seems fitting! The 2016 Championship was ranked sixth, meaning three of our four Championships were in the top six. That reinforces its reputation as the "best of the best."
What were the easiest Duels in league history? The bottom three were all from 2014, when the league just started. And it was the first Duel every, CL Training, that ranks the easiest, with a whopping 284 points and 23.67 average Dueler.
Of course, these rankings have already changed, as the Twin Sun Slam introduced a new professional (Alex C.) and new #1 ranked Dueler (Grant). I'll try and update this list again next summer after we have another season of play under our belts.
